~ My three favourite pastimes

Celebrating the harvest

Harvest Noir is happening tomorrow, so today I’m getting started on some of the prep for the food I’m bringing. In case you aren’t familiar with it, Harvest Noir is a secret pop-up picnic where people are expected to dress in their best black formalwear (ALL black – this is important) and picnic together outdoors eating locally harvested food. It’s a celebration of the harvest, but in formal wear, and it’s followed by a dance party.

The celebration of the fall harvest is a great idea. We are so disconnected from the process of growing and cultivating food, that it’s good to remind ourselves once in a while that food doesn’t just fall from the sky, or come out of a canning factory or a fast food drive through.

With our household’s food restrictions, a picnic using locally harvested food isn’t too hard, since neither of us have any problems with fruits or vegetables, and we have those in abundance. My contribution to tomorrow’s picnic is a Mexican quinoa salad, with delicious tomatoes and peppers grown in our own garden, and GFV pumpkin scones, made from locally grown pumpkins.

Mexican quinoa salad. All that’s missing are some black beans.

Today I made the quinoa salad, so that it could sit overnight and become extra delicious. While I was in the kitchen, I made my third batch of this incredible granola from Kathy Smart’s gluten-free cookbook Live the Smart Way. (See My Cookbooks for more info.) This stuff is amazing – the best granola I’ve ever had.

Homemade granola, fresh out of the oven.

Tomorrow I’ll tackle the pumpkin scones, so they’re fresh for the picnic.